„Defending Neutral Ireland’s Triple Lock”

german-foreign-policy.com: What does neutrality mean for the Irish people?

Anthony Coughlan: Ireland was a neutral State in World War 2, as Switzerland and Sweden were also. It did not join NATO when America set up that military alliance in 1949. Opposition to involvement in foreign wars and international military alliances has been a core element of Irish popular national sentiment ever since the establishment of the Irish State in 1921. Ireland was ruled by Britain and formed part of the United Kingdom and the British Empire before that date. All of the Irish Republic’s political parties still aspire to a united Ireland, which would mean that Northern Ireland – still part of the United Kingdom – would become part of an All-Ireland State at some future time. Anti-imperialist sentiment is therefore strong in the country. There is little desire to get involved in wars side-by-side with Britain. At the same time Ireland’s small army has a proud tradition of serving in United Nations peace-keeping missions abroad. Irish people see EU and NATO military operations as quite different from these. Ireland’s official military spending is proportionately the lowest of any EU Member State.

Membership of the European Union has however affected Irish attitudes. Irish elite and media opinion is strongly europhile. The Irish economy is in good shape these days. Ireland got more money from the European Union budget than it contributed for most of the years since it joined in 1973. That has changed recently and now Ireland contributes more than it receives. There is now growing public concern in the country that the moves towards militarizing the European Union, especially since the Ukraine War started in 2022, will weaken Irish neutrality and draw the country into wars that might suit the interests of powerful forces in Germany, France, the UK and USA rather than Ireland.

gfp.com: What is the Triple Lock?

Coughlan: Irish voters rejected the EU’s Nice Treaty in a referendum in 2001 because of concerns that moves towards a common EU foreign and military policy would subvert Irish neutrality. To persuade voters to change their minds in a second referendum on Nice in 2002, the Irish Government made a National Declaration that Irish troops would not take part in foreign military operations unless these were approved by (a) the Irish Government, (b) the Irish Parliament and (c) the United Nations in either a vote of the Security Council or the UN General Assembly. That is the Triple Lock.

The same thing happened in 2008 when it came to the Treaty of Lisbon that implemented EU Constitution. Ireland was the only EU Member State to hold a referendum on Lisbon, because its national Constitution required that. When Irish voters rejected the Lisbon Treaty, again largely because of concerns about that treaty’s possible effect on Irish neutrality, the Dublin Government repeated its Triple Lock commitment to persuade enough people to change their votes in a second referendum in 2009. Lisbon established a constitutionally new European Union in the form of a Federation with its own legal personality for the first time. It made us all real citizens of this post-Lisbon European Union in addition to our national citizenship, with citizens’ rights and duties at the EU and national levels, just as in such Federations as the USA or Germany – a constitutional revolution implemented by stealth.

Having persuaded Irish voters to ratify the Nice Treaty in 2002 and the Lisbon Treaty in 2009 by promising to keep the Triple Lock, the Irish Government now wants to abolish it. The reason is that it wants to be able to take part in future EU military operations that do not have United Nations approval.

gfp.com: Has Ireland’s neutrality policy been upheld by Ireland’s Governments?

Coughlan: In Ireland as in the other EU Members the country’s governing elites have for decades now supported the surrender of more and more law-making, executive and judicial powers of Government from the national level, where these are under popular democratic control, to the supranational level of Brussels and Frankfurt, where the EU is ruled essentially by non-elected committees. Ireland’s traditional neutrality policy and the Triple Lock commitment are major obstacles to this surrender in the field of foreign and military policy. So Irish neutrality policy has been gradually and stealthily eroded. Thus Ireland has permitted US war-planes to use Shannon Airport without inspection. These are not supposed to carry armed soldiers or munitions on their way to the Middle East, but it is widely believed that they do that. Ireland takes part in the EU’s Common Foreign and Defence Policy, and EU projects that include joint purchase of military weapons. It has voted for EU economic sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine war and has helped train Ukraine soldiers in supposedly “non-lethal” activities such as mine clearance, combat medicine and instruction in military tactics. But the Triple Lock stops it from sending Irish soldiers actually to fight in Ukraine.

gfp.com: Why does the Irish Government want to abolish the Triple Lock?

Coughlan: The Triple Lock means that Ireland cannot send Irish soldiers to do fighting abroad without a UN mandate. Since Sweden and Finland joined NATO following the start of the Ukraine war, only Ireland, Austria and Malta remain as EU “neutrals”. Because of its small size Ireland could not contribute much of military value to EU or NATO operations. But its neutrality is symbolically important. Maintaining the Triple Lock is the clearest evidence that Ireland has some vestigial independence left vis-à-vis the EU. Since early 2022 Ireland’s elites went wholeheartedly along with the other EU States in backing America’s and NATO’s proxy war with Russia in Ukraine. Since January this year, however, there has been consternation in Irish elite circles, as well as in German, French and British ones, at US President Trump’s seeking a peace deal with Putin’s Russia. “Peace through Ukraine victory” is still the EU’s policy. This means continuing the Ukraine war as long as possible, and preparing for a new Cold War with Russia over the coming decade should a realistic peace in Ukraine come about. The Triple Lock inhibits Ireland’s participation in all that.

This is the background to the EU Commission’s ReArm Europe plan in 2025 to spend €800 billion on arms in the EU Member States over the next ten years. It is background too to the EU’s SAFE regulation (Security Action for Europe), adopted as EU law on 29 May, to establish a €150 billion central EU fund for military purchases over the coming five years. The EU’s Welfare States must become Warfare States. The generals and colonels in Ireland’s small army – some 7,000 soldiers, fewer than one division strong – are quite excited by this. Career opportunities and the prospect of lucrative postings in the EU military bureaucracy attract them. Militarizing the EU is the slogan of the hour and Ireland’s elites, animated by their usual uncritical europhilia, are anxious to play a full part. The main obstacle in their way is the strong attachment of the Irish public to the State’s traditional neutrality policy, for which the Triple Lock is central.

gfp.com: What would be the practical consequences if the Irish Parliament, the Dáil, abolished the Triple Lock?

Coughlan: To abolish the Triple Lock would be to repudiate the solemn National Declaration made by Ireland at the time of the 2002 Nice Treaty referendum and the 2009 Lisbon Treaty referendum that Ireland would only take part in foreign military missions if these had a United Nations mandate. This National Declaration was positively responded to by the other EU States in the Seville Declaration of that year. Both Declarations were formally registered with the United Nations when the Nice Treaty was ratified. There was no time limit on this Triple Lock commitment. Irish citizens voted to ratify the Nice Treaty and later the Lisbon Treaty and the EU’s Constitution on the basis of that promise. For an Irish Government to repudiate the Triple Lock now would be to show dishonesty vis-a-vis its own citizens as well as to the other EU States. It would raise issues regarding Ireland’s good faith under the Vienna Conventions on the Law of Treaties.

Without the Triple Lock Ireland could have participated in the 2003 Iraq war over Saddam Hussein’s mythical weapons of mass destruction. Or the war that deposed the Gaddafi Government in Libya in 2011 – none of which had a UN mandate. Or whatever military adventures it might suit Germany or France or the rest of the EU to launch against Russia in the coming decade. Or a bellicose UK along with them.

gfp.com: You made a submission to the Irish Parliament’s Defence and National Security Committee. What was it about?

Coughlan: The current Irish Government is a coalition of two traditional “bourgeois” parties that have Irish-language names – one called Fianna Fáil, which is broadly centre-left, and the other, Fine Gael, centre-right. The opposition parties, the nationalist Sinn Féin, Labour and the Social Democrats, are all opposed to abolishing the Triple Lock. There is opposition too within the centre-left Fianna Fáil, the party of current Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Micheál Martin. This party was founded by Eamon de Valera, a key figure in Ireland’s War of Independence, who kept Ireland neutral during World War 2. Neutrality has been a traditional core value of Fianna Fáil.

The Irish Government has asked the Committee for Defence and National Security of Ireland’s Parliament to give “pre-legislative scrutiny” to the proposal to abolish the Triple Lock. The Government has a big enough parliamentary majority to push abolition through if its members stay united, but referring it to this committee indicates that it is concerned at possible internal rebellion against this step. I recently made a submission to this committee on behalf of an EU Research and Information Centre that I belong to. This set out the arguments for keeping the Triple Lock. In Dublin last Saturday many non-politically aligned citizens walked with Ireland’s Opposition party leaders to the Irish Parliament, where a public meeting was held calling for the retention of the Triple Lock and that Ireland’s Government should maintain a meaningful neutrality policy. There will be many more such demonstrations.

Ireland’s Triple Lock will not be abandoned without a real fight by Irish people who are opposed to EU war-mongering, who want to end the Ukraine war and prevent a new Cold War with Russia on our continent. That fight may yet ensure that it will not be abandoned at all.